The
time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by
severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown
their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, "Be virtuous
and you will be happy," had been ironically paraphrased too often.
"Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were
virtuous," was a practical reading.
But for a certain secret which she alone knew and which no one
would in the least have believed, if she had proclaimed it from
the housetops, Feather would really have been entirely happy.
And, after all, the fly in her ointment was merely an odd sting
a fantastic Fate had inflicted on her vanity and did not in any
degree affect her pleasures. So many people lived in glass houses
that the habit of throwing stones had fallen out of fashion as an
exercise. There were those, too, whose houses of glass, adroitly
given the air of being respectable conservatories, engendered in
the dwellers therein a leniency towards other vitreous constructions.
As a result of this last circumstance, there were times when
quite stately equipages drew up before Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' door
and visiting cards bearing the names of acquaintances much to be
desired were left upon the salver presented by Jennings. Again,
as a result of this circumstance, Feather employed some laudable
effort in her desire to give her own glass house the conservatory
aspect.
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